Jenny Han Quotes

Whenever I was trying to get over a boy, I would write him a really long, wrought letter – but never mail it.

Change is hard but inevitable.

When you write something by hand, there’s a sort of intimacy that is just intrinsic to that act. You don’t get to delete something in the same way, where it’s like it was never there.

My sister is my very favorite person, and I dedicated ‘To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before’ to her.

Every choice leads you somewhere, but it might not be where you truly want to be if the decision is based on someone else. It could lead to regrets and what-ifs, but that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t still have valuable experiences.

It’s important for Asian American kids to see themselves in stories and to feel seen. They need to know that their stories are universal, too, that they, too, can fall in love in a teen movie. They don’t have to be the sidekick; they can be the hero.

I think that’s what distinguishes YA from adult fiction – it’s not just the age of the characters, but it’s the sense of hope. Because I don’t think I’ve ever read a YA book that feels completely hopeless at the end.

I write diverse books because the world we live in is diverse, and I want my books to reflect that truth.

Sometimes you don’t know what a book is about until you are finished with it and you’re talking about it.

Beyonce, Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, and Adele are a few of my favorites.

I think you are going through so many ‘firsts’ as a teenager, and it’s a charged time because of that. You don’t have much autonomy in life. Everything is just kind of crazy, and there are so many huge decisions to be made, like where are you going to college or who you date. These things can really affect your whole life.

I always think about race as a part of one’s identity, not the whole of one’s identity. You don’t want it to be the defining characteristic of a character. There has to be more.

I came of age during the Golden Age of rom coms – like the ’90s and 2000s – there were so many.

All my writer friends outline their books, and I find that hard. It doesn’t feel inspired to me. I get bored with that, and really, I just want it to be fun.

I worked on ‘Always and Forever, Lara Jean’ for a few months before I breathed a word of it my editor or agent.

There are so many people that want to tell stories. I think that the issue is how hard it is to get your foot in the door to tell your stories.

I might just be the luckiest girl ever.

‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ is about how, as a young woman, everyone gets that moment of being in bloom, but nobody really appreciates it.

I think that if a writer doesn’t use her voice, be it in her writing or online or in real life, then what is the point of having one?

I started writing my first book for young people when I was in college. I was only a couple of years out of my teens when I began; I felt closer to that experience than I did as an adult. But I’ve always been drawn to stories about young people.

It’s not hard to get into a teen’s head, because it’s all emotions. Their feelings are amplified; you have no luxury of hindsight. If you haven’t had your heart broken before, you don’t know that you’ll be able to get back up again.

You don’t have to you change yourself for somebody else to like you.

Sometimes readers want some escapist fun, to get lost in the story. But light-hearted romantic stories can and should star all kinds of girls.

There is power in seeing a face that looks like yours do something, be someone. There is power in moving from the sidelines to the center.

I really love to write about food, crafts, and fashion, so those details will always be a part of my books. I think they inject stories with color and flavor, providing a tactile experience.

There’s some of me in all my characters.

I do end up revealing a lot online, but in books, what I reveal is more tailored. Authors can couch revelations in fiction. With social media, no one wants to watch or read if it doesn’t feel authentic, so you end up giving away a lot of yourself.

The American girl doesn’t look just one kind of way – not in 2018, not ever.

When you’re young, you don’t have a lot of control over even basic things in your life – where you live, what you eat, where you go during the day, how you get there. You don’t have a lot of control, and that can feel sort of unstable in its own way because you don’t get a say in those basic things.

My sister and I are really close. She’s my little sister.

Even as a full-grown adult, it can still feel destabilizing when your family goes through changes.

I think, as a writer, you spend most of your time working on the book alone.

My whole life, as an adult as well, I’ve been attracted to stories about young people. This period of time is so fertile – there’s a million things that are happening, a million firsts, and to be able to witness that and record that is a privilege.